CHAPTER FIVE: CHILDREN’S RESPONSES TO SCHOOL-BASED PROGRAMMES

Introduction

Children’s responses to school-based programmes and their learning from them are closely related as learning is more likely to occur when children are engaged with the material (Kirkpatrick, 1998). Obtaining children’s views of the programme studied here is therefore important in understanding which elements of the programme proved to be effective, as well as the mechanisms through which change is effected for this age group. As such, children were asked about aspects of the programme they liked, disliked or would change and their responses to these questions are discussed in the first half of the chapter in ‘Children’s responses and engagement’ with findings in this section reported under the headings: programme content, methods of delivery and programme structure. Key themes emerged from a process of inductive and deductive analysis as described in the

methodology chapter, with findings from this study reported under key headings. The themes emerging through a process of inductive analysis, are original to this research and these are described under key headings: locating programme content in children’s

experiences; children’s requirement for in-depth discussion; value of drama and interactive methods which promotes participative learning; value of learning within the peer group setting. Deductive analysis identified themes which build on and strengthen those identified in the existing literature and these include: adopting a whole-school approach as a means of achieving readiness; children’s appeal for authentic and embodied learning; contextualising learning around gender equality within children’s everyday lives; facilitator characteristics; programme length and intensity; who should deliver programmes.

The aims of the programme, like many programmes developed and evaluated to date (Bell and Stanley, 2006; DMSS, 2012; Ellis, 2006; Reid Howie Associates, 2002) focus on increasing children’s awareness and understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and on developing their help seeking skills so children are better equipped with the relevant language and knowledge to recognise and stay safe from abusive relationships now and/or in the future. Programme outcomes also relate to improving attitudes by promoting affective change such as developing empathy, increasing confidence and empowerment, as well as encouraging positive beliefs through challenging attitudes that condone and conceal abusive relationships. Children’s views of the impact of the programme on these aspects of their learning are discussed in the second half of the chapter in Programme impact, and

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findings in this second section are reported under the headings: improved knowledge and awareness, and improved skills, confidence and relationships. The themes identified under these headings derive from the topics covered in the programme and relate to one of the research questions for this study which aims to identify whether school-based programmes can improve younger children’s knowledge and skills to enable them to recognise different forms of violence. The shift towards the development of integrated programmes (see Chapter two), means that findings from the programme considered here, which addresses a range of topics, will be relevant for other integrated programmes, as well as the

development of guidance for the new Relationships Education curriculum due to commence in primary schools from September 2020. In this chapter, pseudonyms are assigned to individual children’s quotes to ensure the anonymity of the children participating in the study.

Children’s responses and engagement

Programme content

The aim of the programme is to promote healthy relationships through increasing children’s knowledge and understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships. As noted above, this programme addresses a range of forms of violence including physical, emotional and sexual abuse as well as addressing the broader issue of bullying and peer-based violence. Topics covered in the programme include healthy and unhealthy friendships, gender and power in relationships, communication and conflict management, early warning signs, peer pressure, staying safe from sexual abuse and help seeking and support. On the whole, most children found the topics enjoyable and stimulating, with a number of children reporting that they ‘liked it because they were teaching us something that somethings I didn’t already know’. As noted in Chapter two, bullying prevention work is well developed in schools and one girl reflected on how the programme material furthered her previous learning in school on this topic:

I think if we didn’t have this workshop we wouldn’t learn as much as we know now ‘cause they don’t really tell us where to go and what to do when you’re being bullied,

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it’s just assemblies about bullying like what a bully can do to you and that’s about it. (Girl, School C, Group 2)

This child appears to be expressing a need for more authentic or embodied learning around the topic of bullying rather than simply being told about the issue during assemblies. On the other hand, two children (both girls) were less motivated by the material suggesting that although they felt the programme had served to remind them of previous learning on the topic of help seeking, they felt that this aspect of the programme had simply reproduced what was learnt before and that they hadn’t learnt anything new:

But they should have told us new things because we’ve heard all those things before when ChildLine came and our teachers telling us that, but we did learn a lot we remembered now, they reminded us about it, but they could have told us new things. (Girl 1, School A, Group 2)

Like they could have told us about, like we knew where to go for help and stuff. They reminded us but they said to us that they’re going to tell us new things, so I thought that I would have found out more things, but I remembered some of the things. They reminded us but we didn’t really know anything new. They could have told us like how to get to the centre like and if like, they could have told us more things about ChildLine. All they told us about ChildLine was that it’s somewhere where you can call them, they won’t, they won’t like, you won’t see their numbers like they won’t see that you’ve called them and stuff like that. (Girl 2, School A, Group 2)

Evidently, help seeking is a topic that interests these children and many children, like the two quoted above, conceptualised the programme as them being ‘told things’. However, the appeal made by children in the extracts above for ‘more things’ suggests that children want material to be more relevant to their current lives. The requirement for material to be meaningful reflects findings from Stanley et al.’s (2015) review where it was reported that young people valued content that was ‘real’ and applicable to their own experience. The frustration expressed by these children may also reflect a lack of preparation and

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children had previously done in schools so that programme messages were simply repeating what children already knew (see further discussion below). Although a more tailored approach would require a sound understanding of children’s prior knowledge, without such preparation, programme content may be disregarded as ‘not relevant’ (Fox et al., 2014: 38). These criticisms may also be linked to a lack of opportunity to explore this topic within the programme. The theme of help seeking was explored to some extent during the focus group, with children considering what might happen if they rang ChildLine16 _{and this is} discussed further below, under Programme Impact. A lack of depth of information in general was a criticism made by three further children who suggested the programme could be improved with ‘more details, more stuff and explain more about it’. The suggestion in the quote above that children this age need information to be clear and concrete is discussed further below. These comments expose the inherent tensions in delivering a programme that aims to engage children but is based on an adult driven agenda – this was a programme for children written and largely controlled by adults. Involving children in the design of programmes and listening to children’s views, such as those expressed here around the lack of depth of programme material, might address this imbalance and ensure that the content is more relevant for children in their current lives. Conceptualising children as active agents in the acquirement of knowledge (James et al., 1998), indicates the importance of

encouraging them to explore topics raised within programmes so that their involvement is participatory rather than passive. The programme studied here aimed to empower children through their active participation and to enable them to recognise and assert their rights. However, empowerment requires programmes to acknowledge children’s own

understandings of the extent of their agency in the context of child-adult power relations (Mayall, 2002); this is particularly relevant for programmes delivered within the school environment where children are governed by adults. The suggestion in the extracts above that children need clarity about what would happen if they seek help may reflect their understanding that their empowerment and agency largely depends on the consent of adults and their willingness to help them.

The topics of sexual abuse and sexual pressure were the areas where children participating in the focus groups were most likely to be critical. For most children, this was new and challenging material and eight children participating in the focus groups (four girls, four

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boys) described feeling ‘shocked’ or ‘surprised’ that they were discussing these topics, although the opportunity to discuss these topics was embraced by others:

I found it exciting but at the same time like I thought like that it wasn’t our age but at the same time it was exciting. It helped me learn and expand my brain. (Boy, School B, Group2)

Children who were more resistant to this material described feeling discomfort when exploring these topics, frequently describing their age as a factor in their resistance:

Nicola: Charlie’s story about sending pictures of private parts, yeah. How did you feel about that?

Zach: It felt a bit weird and I was a bit shocked and weird at the same time ‘cause doing sexual abuse and showing your private parts isn’t really going in and I just wasn’t expecting it. I thought we were doing like a higher year, like Year 7

Nicola: You think that’s for children older than you, do you? Zach: Yeah

Nicola: And did you say didn’t go in? Do you mean it didn’t go into your mind?

Zach: I meant didn’t pay attention ‘cause I didn’t want to learn about it now, learn it but later on

(Zach: Boy, School C, Group 1)

Differences in children’s ability to accept these topics were apparent in some of the focus group discussions and these differences were evident across all schools, amongst both boys and girls. Some children approached these topics openly, seeing these discussions as beneficial and worthwhile, whereas other children were more unwilling to accept what was perceived as adult knowledge:

Emily: So it means that, so it says that we need to help stop sexual abuse… Hesam: Yes

144 Abigail: Don’t! Please

Jasmine: Ughhhh!!!!

Hesam: We’re in year 6, we’re grown-ups so… Abigail: You’re grown up?

Hesam: We’re Year 6

Jasmine: You’re grown up? (Laugh) You’re grown up? Hesam: We’re Year 6, we need to learn about it Abigail: You’re grown up?

Hesam: We do learn a bit in Year 6

Abigail: But Hesam, it’s like when you say it, it’s just weird

Emily: If you’re going to be immature about the PANTs thing then I can’t wait to see what will happen in sex education ‘cause we’re doing that

Abigail: (Shouts) Yeah in Year 7!

Jasmine: I won’t do nothing, I won’t laugh because it’s about my body and I need to know about that

(Girls: Emily, Abigail, Jasmine; Boy: Hesam – all School A, Group 2)

Although children in the school context are positioned in relation to their age and learning stage, the receptiveness of children taking part in school-based programmes can differ. Despite such differences, discussions which take place amongst the peer group, such as the one cited above, reflect the ways that children can begin to work through difficult subjects together. Learning within the group setting provides opportunities for those children who are more receptive to material covering sexual content to facilitate those who are less so. Through their collective learning, children can encourage each other to begin to think of these topics as relevant to their age group and this may benefit those children with more resistant attitudes to unfamiliar content. In this extract, Abigail shows that she is currently unable to accept material relating to sexual content, however by starting to debate this within the peer group, rather than being ‘told things’ by adults, Abigail is beginning to confront the issue. Jasmine, on the other hand, seems to initially agree with Abigail that this is adult material and not something she wants to hear about. However, by the end of this

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extract Jasmine appears to have been swayed, agreeing with Hesam and Emily that this is both important and relevant to her. This discussion demonstrates the value of giving children space to talk within a group setting, how children are able to work things out between themselves in groups and that children can be trusted to do so. Using focus groups as a method of data collection has enabled children in this group to explore their own and other’s ideas and attitudes and to both agree with and challenge each other’s responses (Lombard, 2015). Without this approach, valuable discussions such as this would not have been captured. By including mixed gender groups, the dynamic between boys and girls, as well as the range of views among them, is obtained.

Despite some level of discomfort, the response of the majority of children suggests that the programme material was suitable for children of this age group. The fact that some children were not used to addressing this material perhaps highlights the need for children to learn about these topics in schools as some children do not appear to be hearing these messages regularly elsewhere, for instance at home. Feelings of embarrassment when discussing these issues is understood to be appropriate for this age group (see Tutty, 2014) (and possibly also for some older children and adults) and there is some suggestion (Fox et al., 2014) that without some level of discomfort when learning about ‘sensitive’ issues such as these, learning may not be as effective (see further discussion in Chapter Seven). However, although some level of discomfort was apparent among children across all the schools, three girls observed in the Catholic school reacted particularly strongly against these topics. Although there may be various reasons why these girls were not able to tolerate this

material, their collective response may reflect the ethos of the school where these topics do not appear to get talked about (see discussion under ‘Accessing the schools’ in Chapter three), and messages children may be hearing at home which do not support programme messages could moderate the effects of the programme (Walsh et al., 2015) (see further discussion in Chapter Seven on preparing schools for programmes). In contrast to one-off programmes delivered by external agencies, a holistic whole-school approach (Maxwell et al., 2010; Maxwell and Aggleton, 2014), which generates sustained attitude change may help children to learn how to talk about these issues over time.

Before the programme, children were given very little information about the programme and in most cases were told little more than the title of the programme by their teacher. This created some confusion for children who described feeling unprepared and ‘surprised’ to be engaging in these subjects:

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You come in and healthy relationships and then you’re talking about being safe, it’s not what you were thinking to talk about it, you think it’s to talk about healthy friendships. (Boy, School 3, Group 1)

I thought healthy relationships was about healthy things about you and your friend not like something like this, what you think about sex and all that. (Boy, School 3, Group 1)

By situating the programme under the broad framework of ‘healthy relationships’, the purpose of the programme is obscured for children. The extracts above suggest that even at the end of the programme these children remained uncertain about what was meant by ‘healthy relationships’. Introducing the programme to children in this way, and without further clarity, meant that children were unprepared to engage in the material. If children are fully acknowledged as active learners whose acquirement of knowledge is a dynamic rather than passive process, readiness emerges as important (Howath et al., 2018; Stanley et al., 2015). Increasing children’s readiness by preparing them to engage in programme topics in advance, as well as improving schools’ readiness by helping them to facilitate children’s engagement could be a powerful mechanism to reduce children’s anxiety or surprise to be engaging in these topics (see further discussion in Chapter Seven). At the same time, the unequal power dynamic between adult teachers and children means children have little choice whether to participate in programmes such as this. None of the children participating in the programme during this study were provided with opportunities to opt themselves out or encouraged to leave if they wished. Where a small number of girls in the Catholic school did detach themselves from discussions (see discussion in Chapter Seven), adult teachers encouraged them to re-join, rather than sit out of the group. A child-centred approach where children are recognised as actors with agency with a right to participate, or not, (even when adults feel participation is in a child’s best interest) was lacking in this programme.

147 Methods of delivery

a. Drama and interactive methods

The methods used to deliver the programme emerged as an important factor in children’s enjoyment and engagement. A range of methods was employed to engage children in learning including creative and visual activities such as games, and drama as well as small group work and whole-group discussions. These participative and interactive methods, like those used in other such programmes developed to date (Bell and Stanley, 2006; DMSS, 2012; Hale at al., 2012) appeared to be suited to a range of learning styles and were valued highly by most of the children. The appeal of these methods for some was that they provided a different way of learning in school, as opposed to the more traditional approach of learning through written work, and boys in particular described this experiential approach as both refreshing and enticing:

…with our normal lessons you’d sit at your tables, Miss would talk about stuff, she’d ask some questions and then you’d get to writing, or then you’d do something else… (Boy, School C, Group 1)

I enjoyed that because we didn’t do much work or writing but we still learnt a lot and I like that way of learning because it doesn’t require lots of writing, but we still learnt. (Boy, School B, Group 2)

I thought like it might just be a normal lesson so I didn’t feel anything like excitement